AP Photo/Nati Harnik Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts delivers his annual State of the State address to lawmakers in Lincoln trickle-downers_35.jpg L ess than two weeks into the new legislative session, Nebraska lawmakers already look to be moving full speed ahead on enacting corporate and top-rate tax cuts—even amid an ongoing budget shortfall that has resulted in severe spending cuts to state services. During his State of the State address on Wednesday, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts introduced the preliminary framework for a tax plan that would see the state’s top corporate and income tax rate cut twice over the next two years. The address marked what will be a second attempt by the governor at passing a tax reform bill after a plan he sponsored fell six votes short of passing the state’s Republican majority unicameral legislature last year, thanks to opposition from Democrats and some moderate Republicans. This bipartisan group of dissenters felt the bill didn’t do enough for...

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster A woman holds up a sign that reads "Defend DACA Defend TPS" during a rally supporting DACA outside the White House This article appears in the Winter 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . UPDATE: On Friday, May 4, the Trump administration rescinded deportation protections for 57,000 Hondurans currently living and work in the United States. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced that the damage and disruption in Honduras caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1999 was not substantial enough to merit a renewal of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Honduras’s TPS designation had been set to expire in November 2017, but former Acting Secretary Elaine Duke delayed the decision for six months. In her short time as head of DHS, Nielsen has eliminated protections for nearly 50,000 Haitians, 9,000 Nepalis, and some 200,000 Salvadorans. Salvadoran TPS holders have until September 2019 to change their immigration status, leave...

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill trickle-downers_35.jpg I f the Senate Republican tax bill could talk, it would probably sound a lot like Chuck Grassley. During a week already rife with Republican skullduggery, the Iowa Senator did his best Scrooge impression while defending the recently passed legislation’s weakening of the estate tax: “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley told reporters last week . “As opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” The senator’s words were callous, elitist, and, worse still, completely inaccurate. In 2015, consumers with pre-tax incomes between $15,000 and $30,000 spent nearly eight-and-a-half times less on alcohol than consumers who made $200,000 or more, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey . Consumers that made between $50,000 and $70,000...

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky Children stand next to United States and Haitian flags as they hold signs in support of renewing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from Central America and Haiti now living in the United States, during a news conference in Miami B lack immigrant advocates gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol last week to tell stories of America’s Haitian communities and ask the Trump administration for a Thanksgiving “gift”: Don’t deport us. The Department of Homeland Security has until Thursday to decide on whether to renew a temporary program that allows about 50,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States. Immigrant advocacy groups have shifted into high gear to press for an extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), while urging legislators to devise an alternative if the DHS fails to renew protections for Haitians next week. “Anyone traveling back to Haiti can see for themselves that these conditions are inhumane. It is truly as if it was the day...